Coronation 60 Years: Spam, the BBC and Rule Britannia

CORONATION DAY on June 2, 1953, dawned cold, wet and miserable.

In fact it was a typical British summer's day but the weather did nothing to dampen the spirits of the thousands who had travelled to London from all over Britain and camped out the previous night on the pavements along the royal route in order to get the best vantage point for the festivities.

The rain fell constantly but the crowds, in their plastic macs, remained good humoured.

Although the Second World War had been over for eight years we were still suffering post-war austerity and everything was in short supply.

Sweets were rationed until only three months earlier but at last you could buy a bar of chocolate or a bag of toffees without needing the correct number of coupons in your ration book.

In every community in Britain street parties were being held to mark the occasion with everyone decorating their houses with bunting and flags, and pooling their goodies: jelly, blancmange and Spam sandwiches being the order of the day.

Despite her subjects' scrimping and scraping, there was a massive, heartfelt goodwill for the 27-year-old Princess Elizabeth as she prepared to be crowned Elizabeth II; the 45th Sovereign of Great Britain yet only its 6th Queen Regnant (reigning in her own right).

The ceremony in Westminster Abbey, where 8,250 guests waited, was to be televised for the first time but less than five per cent of homes possessed a TV set.

There was only one channel, the BBC, and it was in black and white.

The current affairs programme Panorama was being screened for the first time and it is still going strong, as is Her Majesty.

Television was in its infancy and the Coronation would give it a massive boost.

In those houses where there was a television, neighbours crowded round the tiny flickering screens to watch the celebrations and to listen to the reverential tones of Richard Dimbleby who would provide the commentary.

The Queen Mother and the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Geoffrey Fisher (who would carry out the act of crowning), had objected to the televising of the service on the grounds that TV would destroy the dignity and solemnity of the occasion and "workmen wearing their caps might watch in pubs", ignoring the fact that there wasn't a single pub in the country that boasted a TV in those far-off days.

There had been the same objections when the then Princess married in 1947.

Radio was still the number one home entertainment source and it wasn't even called radio then, it was wireless.

We still had National Service when all fit men between the ages of 18 and 21 were required to serve in the Armed Forces for two years.

Conscription did not end until December 31, 1960.

In 1953 our boys were fighting communists in the jungles of Malaya, there was a war going on in Korea, and others were on active service in Aden, Cyprus and Kenya.

At home everything was in short supply.

It was the age of post-war austerity. In our time of multi-channel television on demand, satellite mobile phones, iPods, tablets, laptops and every other kind of technological gadgetry it is hard to remember that back then only one house in every 400 had a telephone.

We relied on the ubiquitous red telephone boxes that took predecimal pennies: if you pressed button B you got your money back if you could not get through.

About one household in 500 owned a car and even if you could afford to buy one there were very few new vehicles being produced and the waiting list was two years long.

A new Ford Popular cost £390 but at one car showroom in central London a secondhand, pre-war Austin 10 was on offer for £45.

The same car today in pristine condition would fetch about £5,500.

However, if you were lucky enough to possess a car, motoring was pure joy. There were no motorways, yellow lines or parking attendants and petrol cost five shillings (25p) a gallon.

The roads were practically empty and if you were seen by an approaching AA or RAC patrolman on his motorcycle, he would invariably give you a friendly salute.

Wages and prices have altered beyond recognition in the 60 years since the Coronation.

The average price for a three-bedroom semi-detached house in Britain was £2,006.

Today it is said to be about £168,000 but in London you would be lucky to find a lock-up garage for that sort of money. In Ealing, west London, a four-bedroom property was on sale with an asking price of £2,650. The same house was sold recently for £1.4million.

The average weekly wage in Britain was £8s 5shillings (43p), today it is said to be some £600 but there are plenty of people earning less and there are thousands who make considerably more.

We were still using pounds, shillings and pence and measuring in inches, feet and yards.

Metric measurement was decades away and somehow, even today, to describe a man as being 6ft tall seems more impressive than 1.828m.

Spam and Carnation condensed milk were the norm for those who lined London’s streets

In our time of multi-channel television on demand, satellite mobile phones, iPods, tablets, laptops and every other kind of technological gadgetry it is hard to remember that back then only one house in every 400 had a telephone

How many schoolchildren today have even heard of a furlong? It is now used only in racing terms (and for the record it is 220 yards).

The price of food and drink has escalated to a degree where it is difficult to believe that in 1953 a loaf of white bread, unsliced, cost the equivalent of 3p, today it is £1.25.

A pint of milk, in a glass bottle not a plastic container, delivered to your doorstep, cost 2.9p (now 46p) while Woodbines, one of the most popular (and cheap) packets of cigarettes, were 9d (just under 4p) in old money for five. Today, a packet of 20 of most brands is about £6.70.

In those days you paid for everything in cash; plastic was years away.

The cinema was the main place of entertainment outside the home with some picture palaces seating up to 2,000.

Prices in the cheapest seats started at 1/3d in old money (6p today) up to 3/6d (17p now) in the grand circle upstairs.

The two biggest films of 1953 were From Here To Eternity, starring Frank Sinatra and Burt Lancaster, and Roman Holiday with Audrey Hepburn and Gregory Peck.

The London Palladium was the country's leading theatre and the biggest star to appear there in 1953 was Johnnie Ray with his hit record Cry.

The Palladium also announced that its Christmas pantomime that year would star a young Julie Andrews as Cinderella.

In 1953 we all listened to Jack Jackson on Radio Luxembourg if we wanted to hear the latest hits from the US and the top singers of that year were Frankie Laine with Answer Me, Tony Bennett singing Stranger In Paradise, Kay Starr, who topped the charts for 13 weeks with Side By Side, and Guy Mitchell with She Wears Red Feathers. Among the British artists reaching the charts was Lita Roza, singer with the Ted Heath Orchestra, singing How Much Is That Doggy In The Window? Radio was king with Educating Archie and The Goon Show occupying the top spots.

In sport it was Gordon Richards's year. After 28 attempts he at last won The Derby on June 6, having been knighted by the Queen a few days before.

Prime Minister Winston Churchill was also among those honoured and he became Sir Winston.

An unknown New Zealander, Edmund Hillary, together with his Sherpa Tenzing Norgay, became the first to conquer Everest on May 29, and Hillary too was knighted.

On March 1 a 21-year-old named Tommy Taylor became the most expensive footballer in Britain when he was transferred from Barnsley to Manchester United for the princely sum of £29,999, which would not pay any of the current team's top players for a day.

On Thursday, April 16, The Queen launched Britannia, the Royal Yacht that was to carry her all over the world until it was decommissioned in 1997.

The Queen's grandmother Queen Mary had died on March 24 at her home, Marlborough House in Pall Mall, now the headquarters of the Commonwealth Secretariat, but she had left instructions that Court mourning should not interfere with the Royal Coronation and so it duly went ahead as planned.

The attention to detail for the Coronation was extraordinary.

Arranged with meticulous care by the Duke of Norfolk everything was planned so that everyone involved knew exactly what they were doing and when.

The Queen's preparations were just as attentive.

To get used to the weight of St Edward's Crown she wore a couple of bags of sugar on her head as she went around the Palace in the days before the ceremony and nobody dared to laugh.

Among the officers on duty at the Coronation was one Captain Viscount Althorp who would go on to become better known as the father of the late Diana, Princess of Wales.

Also, the coronet of the Lord High Chancellor was carried into Westminster Abbey by his page, a very young Andrew Parker Bowles whose future (and former) wife Camilla would eventually marry heir to the throne Prince Charles.

During the procession to and from the Abbey, The Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh (he wasn't even a Prince then; that didn't happen until 1957) wanted to hear part of the commentary so the Palace electricians fitted a contraption nearly 3ft long, beneath the seat of the Gold State Coach in a very early version of a portable radio.

Surprisingly, it worked.

The guests at the Coronation included foreign royalty, heads of state and political leaders from all over the world.

Among the most visible and popular was the statuesque Queen Salote of Tonga.

Standing well over 6ft and weighing in at 20st, she was hard to miss.

Sitting in one of the grandstands in The Mall was Noel Coward with a friend, who asked him who she was. "Queen Salote" was the answer.

"Who is the little man sitting next to her?" "Her lunch," was the reply, delivered with a perfectly straight face. It was that sort of day.

Jokes, picnics in the pouring rain and happy smiling faces all around: in other words an essentially British occasion and the start of a new Elizabethan era.

It was a Coronation that will probably never be seen again on the same scale.

The Queen has carried out her public duties with flawless professionalism in the 61 years she has been on the throne.

So, as we offer our respectful congratulations let us hope that she has inherited the longevity genes of her late mother and will reign for many more years.